


Broken

by rozabellalove



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:44:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rozabellalove/pseuds/rozabellalove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Jensen Ackles keeps seeing the same floppy haired guy dropping into his ER on a regular basis. When he manages to get the tall, bruised patient to open up, he hears a familiar story of abuse and violence that makes him want to help the patient regain his life</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

~*~

The ER was busy, but not too bad for a Friday night. Weekends were usually hectic, with all the alcohol-related injuries filling up space and taking up time that could have been used for more genuine emergencies. Jensen hoped this wouldn’t be one of those nights that turned into a crazy scramble to see all the patients, one of those nights when his shift ended four hours after it was meant to and the whole thing flew by in the blink of an eye. Those nights were too exhausting, no matter how fast they went. Those were the nights that they lost more than they saved.

He’d handled a couple of car crashes, a broken nose, some nasty sprains and more than a few time-wasters by the time it came to the last hour of his shift. It was getting on for two am and the new shift had started to drift in. Jensen finished up stitching a small but deep laceration and handed the guy a checklist of do’s and don’ts, telling him to visit his own GP in the morning to get a prescription for more pain meds. He resisted the urge to give his standard lecture about being careful while drinking, reminding him that underage drinking was illegal. He just didn’t have the energy to watch the kid’s eyes glaze over as he tried to give the best advice he could.

The teenager was herded back to his anxious friends by one of the nurses, who returned to Jensen with another patient in tow. She handed Jensen a clipboard and murmured something reassuring to the patient. Jensen skimmed the notes in front of him, cursing the nurse’s scrawled handwriting. He made out ‘fainted’ and ‘severe contusion’ before deciding he’d have to just ask the patient for more information. When he looked up he was eye level with a familiar-looking jaw. It took him a moment to place the patient, the name had rung a bell, but not enough that he could remember why he knew the guy.

“Uh, Jared, right?” The patient nodded, eyes skittishly downcast, mouth set in a hard line. “Just sit on the bed there for me please, Jared.”

The patient gently eased himself up onto the bed, wincing at a pain in his wrist as he braced himself. Jensen checked the notes again but there was nothing - that he could actually read anyway - about the guy’s wrist being hurt.

“Your wrist hurt too?” He ducked his head down a little to try to catch the patient’s eye.

The patient - Jared - nodded. “Not from today.” He mumbled, voice a little rough.

“Oh, okay. So what’s going on today, then?” Jensen frowned. He was starting to remember why Jared looked familiar now, he thought maybe he’d been on call the night Jared was brought in with the hurt wrist. The x-rays hadn’t been conclusive but he wasn’t wearing a cast so the follow- up doctor must have decided it was just a sprain after all. Still, Jared should be wearing a bandage on it, but the arm was bare.

“Fainted,” Jared’s eyes glanced up at him for a second as if he was forcing himself to make eye-contact, “hit my head in the kitchen.”

Jensen took in the black eye forming on the line of Jared’s eye socket, the swollen cheekbone below it and the split lower lip. “Looks like you fell over more than once there, Jared.” He kept his voice even and low.

“’M clumsy.” The patient’s fingers twisted in his lap, right thumb rubbing at his left palm, while he stared down at it, frowning. His eyes were drifting closed, and Jensen wondered just how hard he’d been hit.

“Were you in a fight, Jared?” There was no response, “Jared?” He put a hand lightly on the patient’s shoulder, and Jared snapped to attention.

“Wha‘? ‘M sorry. Drifted there.” Jensen could see that Jared was having trouble staying alert, his speech was a little slurred. He began to test Jared’s motor responses, while slowly questioning him about his fall, noticing that Jared’s responses weren’t quite perfect, and that his concentration seemed to waver from time to time.

“Okay, I think you’ve got a little concussion from your fall, and we need to get some x-rays to make sure you don’t have any fractures around that eye. We’ll have to keep you in overnight-”

Jared’s eyes jerked wide open and he lifted a hand, “No! He can’t know that…“ He cut off the sentence too quickly, “No, please, I’ll be fine.”

Jensen knew there was nothing he could do to keep the patient there against his will, but it was more than his job was worth to let him walk out of there alone with a concussion. “How about after the x-rays we call someone to come and get you, then?” He gave the option, knowing it would be at least a few hours before they had the x-ray results.

The patient nodded slowly, starting to look dazed again, and gave Jensen a name. He sent the patient up to radiology with one of the nurses, and instructions to call ‘Chad’ from the patient’s cell-phone, to come down and collect his friend.

By the time Jensen’s shift finished, only an hour later than planned for once, he’d completely forgotten about the tall patient with the injuries that clearly weren’t accidental.

~*~

Two weeks later Jensen caught a glimpse of the patient, this time being wheeled out of the ER, the opposite arm in a sling. Before he could leave the patient he was treating and make his way over to ask how Jared had come to be injured again, the doors had slid closed and the tall blond guy had wheeled him away. This time Jared stuck in his mind. There was something about the bowed shoulders, the old yellowish-green bruising he’d seen on the skin of the un-bandaged arm that told him something was very wrong with Jared.

~*~

The shift had been long and depressing, and it was only just beginning. Jensen had patched up a little girl who’d been hit by a car, followed closely by an elderly lady who’d slipped on a wet sidewalk on her way home from doing her grocery shopping. Neither had a lot of family around them for support, and Jensen was tired of seeing the lack of care that affected these people’s lives. He’d never been the type to take in strays, but as time wore on the job was affecting him more and more.

His next patient had one arm in a sling, more old bruises than he usually saw, and what might be a couple of freshly broken ribs. Jared lay on the bed silently, letting the man who’d come in with him tell Jensen what had happened.

“Hi, I’m Finn, this is Jared.”

Jensen nodded, “I think I’ve met you before, Jared, isn’t that right?” He smiled encouragingly, but was only rewarded with a frightened glance from the gigantic patient on the bed. “Or I could be thinking of someone else. So what happened?” Once again he directed his question to Jared, but there was no response from the patient himself.

“He fell down the stairs. Didn’t you, baby?” Finn’s voice was quiet but firm, one hand resting on Jared’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

Jared nodded quickly and Jensen gave a tight smile. “I see, falling over those feet of yours, is it, Jared?” Finn laughed and Jared flashed a quick, fake-looking smile. “I’m just going to feel your side; the nurse tells me you might have a broken rib.” Jensen felt Jared’s ribcage as gently as he could, first on one side and then the other. He could tell Jared was in pain, but it was strangely silent in the little cubicle except for his own murmurs of “Good, good. Not long now and we’ll be done.”

After another round of x-rays they established that Jared had two broken ribs to add to his collection of injuries. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but Jensen insisted that Jared stayed the night. Finn began to protest, but Jensen quickly cut him off, spouting as much jargon as he could fit into a sentence. He used visiting hours as an excuse to get Finn to leave, saying he could pick Jared up in the morning and explaining how to care for Jared’s injury.

~*~

Four hours later Jensen swung by Jared’s small but private room. His shift was over and he would normally be heading out for a beer or two with Chris and the other guys, but something had brought him back to visit this patient instead. He checked the chart and noticed that Jared had been awake half an hour ago when the nurse had last checked on him. Now, though, he was asleep on his back - no doubt the nurses had told him not to sleep on the side - he looked much more peaceful, despite the tear tracks that ended in damp stains on the pillowcase.

There was no need to guess what was going on with this patient. Jared was taking abuse from someone. If Jensen was a betting man he’d have put money on Finn. Jared’s frightened demeanour, the way he deferred to his boyfriend, the way Finn was so anxious to make sure Jensen knew that Jared had fallen. It all added up to a picture Jensen had seen so many times, although rarely with a victim with the sheer size and physique of this guy. Jared didn’t look the type to take that sort of crap from anyone.

Nevertheless, Jensen knew how these things went. One day you were a confident, happy person, in a loving relationship, the next you were a cowering wreck, scared, feeling alone. It only took a little reassurance, a little persuasion, and you were back in his arms, pretending nothing had happened, until it happened again. Luckily Jensen hadn’t been on the receiving end, but he knew enough of it to know that Jared needed someone to talk to. Someone impartial.

He settled into the only chair in the room, ready to spend a few hours waiting. After all, he spent most of his life at the hospital anyway. He didn’t have to wait too long, though. In his sleep Jared tried to roll over, and Jensen watched as the pain ripped him out of unconsciousness and left him half sitting in the bed, gasping in breaths that probably hurt almost as much.

“Shallow breaths, Jared.” He tried to speak as soothingly as possible, but just the sound of his voice made Jared jump in fright, which set off another lot of pained gasps. He reached forward and softly patted the skin of Jared‘s arm. “Lay back, take small, shallow breaths, just take it easy, no-one here’s gonna hurt you, okay? Just relax, I came by to see how you are, that’s all. It’s okay, it’s okay.” He watched as Jared visibly relaxed, going from outright panic to something that was not quite calm, but was at least close.

Jared’s fingers were clutched in the sheets, and he was looking around warily. “Doctor, uh, doctor Ackles?”

“Jensen. Just Jensen.” He smiled encouragingly.

“Where’s my…uh, where’s Finn? Is he back yet? What time is it?” Jensen wondered whether Jared knew that when he said his boyfriend’s name, tiny wrinkles formed on his forehead.

Jensen stood up so he was standing close to the bed, “It’s still early; he won’t be here for a few hours yet. You need to get some rest so you may as well get some sleep, I just came by to see how you are and… to see if there’s anything you needed to talk about. Anything you wanted to tell me about how you got hurt?”

Jared’s eyes darted around the room again, as if looking for Finn, as if he could be hiding in any corner, waiting for Jared to slip up. He began to pull the sheets off his legs, wincing as he tried to swing out of the bed too quickly.

“Woah! Jared, no. Stay there. You need to rest. Please, I’m sorry. If you’ll just get back in I’ll go, okay? I’ll leave you alone.” Jensen stood with his hands lifted and spread out towards Jared, trying to keep him calm. As Jared slowly sat back a little, Jensen took a step back. “I’ll go. Don’t worry, I’m going. Have the nurses page me if you need anything, though. Okay?”

He watched Jared pause, biting down on his lips, frowning, “No, wait.” For the first time Jared locked eyes with Jensen. “Will you stay?”

~*~

At first Jared didn’t speak. Jensen sat there in silence, waiting and wondering whether he should say something to break the silence. After a while though, Jared began to shift in the bed. He lifted up his sleeve and turned his shoulder towards Jensen. “The first time I thought he was going to kill me, he was so mad.” There was a thick scar across Jared’s shoulder, “That was from the corner of our coffee table.”

Once he’d started it all came out in a wash of words, sometimes not making a lot of sense, but Jensen got the basics together. Slowly Jared had become isolated from his friends, all but Chad. They hadn’t been able to understand why he couldn’t spend time with them, why he wouldn’t tell them anything about his life, why they couldn’t visit his home. Only Chad had stayed part of his life, sometimes making things worse for Jared when he had to take a beating from Finn for an unexpected phone call or visit. Jared had given up his job at the SPCA, he couldn’t turn up there with different bruises every week without someone asking questions. He’d cut out his own family to protect them and himself.

The more alone he’d become, the more the violence had escalated. Instead of Finn being calmed by having Jared all to himself, he’d simply become angrier, knowing that Jared’s isolation made him an even easier target, and made him weaker, something that Finn despised. Slowly, Jensen got the full picture of Jared’s life. The beatings and insults had reduced him from a happy, vibrant, outgoing man, to an anxious wreck.

He didn’t say much in response, just encouraging Jared when he needed it and listening the rest of the time. He didn’t try to convince Jared to leave, knowing that it would only drive Jared further away from him. Instead, before Finn came to collect Jared, Jensen gave him a lifeline, his number. He made Jared promise to call him if he needed to talk - if he ever needed anything, a friend, a place to crash. Jensen left as soon as Finn arrived, not wanting to let Finn know that they’d been talking about anything other than Jared’s injuries.

~*~

For a month Jensen was on high alert. Every time he saw shaggy brown hair, every tall guy that came into the ER would catch his attention. Breath catching in his throat, heart almost stopping until he realized they weren’t Jared. Each time it wasn’t Jared there was a mixture of relief and disappointment curdling in his belly at the knowledge that he wasn’t going to be seeing Jared that day.

Eventually he came to be happy that Jared wasn’t suffering, hoped that maybe the broken ribs had been enough to stop the beatings, or maybe talking it out had given Jared the strength to stand up for himself. Either way it meant Jared wasn’t being rushed into the hospital every week and that could only be a good thing.

When Jensen’s phone rang one morning at four thirty am he was expecting it to be work. Who else would be calling him at that hour? Even if he wasn’t actually on call that night. He didn’t recognize the number, but that was nothing new. He grunted “Hello?” with his eyes still closed and the phone loosely draped over the side of his face.

“Jensen?” The voice was familiar but so faint, Jensen’s fingers tightened on the phone, eyes open now. “Dr. Jensen? Please…”

It took him another second to place Jared’s voice before he answered, “Jared? What is it? Are you okay?”

“Sorry, sorry bothering you. ‘s late, but…” Jared’s already weak voice drifted to silence, during which Jensen could hear his labored breathing.

He swung out of the bed, perching on the edge to drag on his on-call jeans and sneakers that always waited at the side of the bed. “No, don’t. Don’t be sorry. Shit. Where are you?” As Jared whispered his address, Jensen grabbed a notepad and scribbled it down, “I’m on my way.”

Jensen drove faster than he should have. Faster than he did when he was going to an emergency at the hospital. He didn’t stop to think about why this was so important to him, knowing he couldn’t stand to question his motivations too closely. Something about Jared’s situation made him want to protect the man;, his own selfish wishes would come second to getting Jared out of this situation, even if they were what drove him to do it in the first place.

The door was damaged. Jensen didn’t look too closely, but it was splintered around the frame, as if it had been forced open. He moved inside cautiously, glancing around him to take in the shattered glass face of the clock on the wall, the overturned table, the smear of blood at the end of the hallway. The house was silent, and Jensen didn’t want to announce his entrance before he knew what he was dealing with. At the base of the stairs he hesitated, wondering whether Jared would be up there or downstairs. A peek into the empty but tidy dining room told him that the struggle had probably taken place upstairs.

He stepped gingerly on each one, not wanting to give anything away in case Finn was still inside the house. As he reached the top, he found the bathroom door slightly ajar, he thought he could hear shallow breaths coming from inside. Pushing the door wider he found Jared, alone and barely conscious on the floor. Forgetting how he wanted to stay unheard, Jensen gasped and hurried over to the corner, dropping to his knees.

Jared’s pulse was weak, but he was breathing softly through cracked and bloody lips. The swelling of his eyelids meant he couldn’t open them very much, and there was blood seeping through the fabric of his pajamas in too many places. Jensen was just glad to see that it was only a light flow, not pools of the stuff. He checked Jared’s airway and timed his pulse, satisfied that while it had been a bad beating, Jared wasn’t in too much danger. He’d called an ambulance en route, and he could hear the paramedics calling just as he finished checking Jared’s vitals, he responded and they rushed upstairs.

~*~

During the ride to the hospital Jared was in and out of consciousness. He didn’t manage to say anything about what had happened, but he kept a tight grip on Jensen’s hand while he was awake, only letting it slip as he drifted away each time.

Once they got there Jensen was relieved to find that there were no broken bones or serious injuries, but with the obvious knock to the head and the fact that Jared had lost some blood, they wanted to keep him in for a few hours longer. It didn’t even occur to Jensen to care that one of his days off was being spent in the hospital again. He installed himself in a corner of Jared’s room, ready to wait it out until he could get some answers from Jared.

He awoke to hear Jared quietly whispering to someone. The room was still only dimly lit, but it was mid-morning already. He was covered in a thin, blue blanket, and someone had tucked a pillow under his head. He opened his eyes to find a pair of out of focus blue ones just inches away from him, staring at him from under frowning blond brows.

“Doc’s awake now, Jay. Y’want me to go?” The guy stood up and Jensen was able to focus enough to see that it was the same blond - Chad - who had been wheeling Jared out of the hospital weeks before.

“No, stay.” Jared’s voice was rough, but stronger than Jensen had heard it for a while. “You can…help.”

Chad nodded, taking the seat beside Jensen. “Jay’s not very good with this stuff,” he fixed Jensen with a warning look, “But he says you’re a decent guy. So I guess I gotta trust his judgment there. Can I do that?”

Jensen nodded, “Yeah, you can.”

“Okay, good. Last thing he needs is someone around him who’s gonna take advantage of him.” Chad’s eyes hardened as he went on, “He’s had enough of that with Finn. Which is why he left.”

Jensen felt his heart tighten in his chest as he listened, Jared had left Finn not long after the broken ribs. He’d more or less gone into hiding, moving into a house not far from where Chad lived, even changing his surname to his mom’s maiden name to make himself harder to trace. Jared came in on the story a couple of times, once to tell them that he’d wanted to call Jensen, but he hadn’t felt right, dragging him into the mess of his life. Jensen could tell that it was more than that. Jared didn’t have the confidence to know how Jensen would react, even though Jensen had given him the number in the first place.

He’d been living alone for three weeks when Finn found him. Jared had heard the door breaking and rushed into the hallway. There Finn had laid into him. When Jared had run up the stairs Finn had followed, beating him until he was unconscious.

Jared’s broken whisper interrupted Chad’s flow, “I don’t know why he stopped. He never did before, not until he was interrupted. Maybe I was just lucky.”

Fat teardrops fell from Jared’s eyes, dripping down into the light stubble on his cheeks. Jensen found himself standing at the side of the bed, twining his fingers with Jared’s, clutching them tightly and stroking them with his other hand.

~*~

Chad pulled him out of the room when Jared’s eyes began to close again. “Why are you still here?” He demanded, rounding on Jensen as soon as they were out of earshot of the room.

“Wh-uh-what?” Jensen took a step back, hands up to defend himself.

The blond’s jaw was set in a hard, angry line, “Do you care about him? Can you give him a better life?” Chad all but poked him in the chest.

Jensen didn’t let himself stop to think about the consequences, or rationalize the impulse that made him leap in with both feet, “He’s coming home with me, if he feels happy with that. I don’t intend to let him out of my sight again.”

Chad nodded, almost appeased, “And Finn?” he quirked one blond eyebrow.

Jensen’s glare made the guy flinch back for just a second, “If he comes anywhere near my place, or Jared again, I’ll make him feel it for weeks, and then I‘ll have him arrested.”

“Not if I get to him first.” Chad grinned and Jensen couldn’t help but grin back. “I’m serious though, doc. If he touches Jared again I don’t know what I’ll do. Only reason I haven’t killed the bastard so far is ‘cause of Jared. He begged me to leave it alone, you know?”

Jensen nodded, “It’s part of the psychology, Chad. Don’t let it get to you. Jared thought he could change Finn, and he was protecting you.”

“’S not me that’s gonna need protecting when I get hold of that fucker.” Chad’s anger began to fade soon after that, and they talked about the practicalities of keeping Jared safe. Jensen tried not to think about what he was getting himself into, each glance between the blinds of Jared’s room reminding him of why he was doing it. Jared’s bruised, swollen face was the strongest incentive he had to protect the man.

~*~

Just like the first few times, the paramedics had alerted the police to the possible assault. This time Jared actually spoke to them. Jensen heard a few snippets from where he waited outside the room, enough to know that Jared was finally standing up for himself. The police took a statement from him, a description of Finn, and as much of his contact information as Jared could remember. Later they asked Jensen and Chad to give statements too, all of which would lend weight to the charges against Finn.

The officer explained that they would need to check Jared’s house for any further forensic evidence to prove that Finn had been there, and that hopefully Finn’s hands would show bruising and grazing too.

When Jensen eventually got to see Jared after the police had left, both of them were exhausted. Jared had been given the all-clear by the doctors, with advice to rest up and to visit his own doctor when he could. Jared was getting dressed to leave, and Chad was giving Jensen urgent looks that seemed to more or less translate into ‘do something now!’.

Jensen stood in the doorway and cleared his throat, Jared gave him a curious glance. Chad kept his eyes on the bag of Jared’s stuff, clearly not wanting to interrupt. Now that Jared’s eyes were on him, Jensen couldn’t remember the things he’d practiced saying, the cleverly thought out ‘why you should come and live with me and be with me forever’ plan. Instead, it came tumbling out in an awkward rush, “I think you should come and live with me. I mean stay with me. For a while. If you want to that is. Shit.”

The look on Jared’s face was a mixture of surprise and amusement, tempered by the swelling and bruising that tinged all of his expressions with a little sadness. “Chad, could you, um…?” he waved vaguely at the door. Jensen stepped further inside the room to let Chad pass, letting his hands fall to rest on the high bed that was between them.

“Yeah, sure.” Chad left them alone together in the little room.

“Jensen…” Jared began, but stalled, eyes downcast as he spoke.

Jensen’s heart constricted in his chest as he watched Jared struggle to reject him. He knew what was coming,. Jared had taken a lot of crap in his last relationship; he didn’t want to risk it again with anyone, not even Jensen. Well. there was no way he was going to make Jared say that, he’d make this as easy as possible. “Wait, Jared. You don’t have to say it, I get it. You don’t really know me, and you can’t give out your trust too easily right now. You’ve got every right to say no. I don’t really know what I was thinking, guess I just wanted to look after you maybe. I don’t know.”

Long fingers closed over Jensen’s. He stared down at their linked hands and when he looked up Jared was grinning. “Well, some of that I guess. Mostly it’s that I really kinda like you, and want to see if this thing, this…whatever’s going on between us, if we can give that a shot.”

Jensen knew he was staring again, knew he must look like a total idiot with his mouth just open, catching flies, but he couldn’t think of any response, or really process what Jared was saying.

“And…well I need some time too. Some time to get my head straight, figure out who I am without someone else in my life, controlling it. Not that I think you would do that, but you know. Look, I guess what I’m saying is, can I see you sometime? Could we spend some time together?”

This time it was Jensen’s turn to grin. He let his fingers entwine with Jared’s and nodded, “Okay, but I hope you know I’m an old fashioned guy, you’ll be lucky to get to first base.”

Jared’s dimples deepened and Jensen thought he saw a hint of a blush forming under the bruised skin, “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

~*~

He turned up five minutes early and Chad answered the door, telling him that Jared was upstairs changing his shirt for the fifth time. He’d had a hard time choosing a ‘manly’ bunch of flowers, in the end he’d just settled for the biggest bunch he could find without any pink in it. Chad’s face told him that the guy didn’t understand why Jensen would bring flowers to a date with a guy, but when Jared finally came downstairs and caught sight of them he knew he’d done the right thing. Jared’s shy grin was even more beautiful now that the bruising and swelling had gone down. He finally got to see Jared the way he’d wanted to since they first met - smiling, happy and healthy.

A big, flashy restaurant wouldn’t have been to either of their tastes, Jensen knew Jared wouldn’t mind if he took them to Giuliani’s instead. The food was plentiful and the atmosphere was more family friendly than stuffy or reserved. By the end of the night they had to be gently persuaded out of the little Italian place, the door locking behind them as they stood under the shelter of the door, heads close together, laughing.

Jensen’s heart pounded as he took a chance, linking his fingers through Jared’s and tilting his head up to catch the taller man’s eye. Jared’s laugh seemed to catch in his throat. For a second there was silence between them, the moment stretching out as Jensen wondered how Jared would react if he just leaned up a little and… Jared’s lips quirked for just a moment before he leaned down and kissed Jensen, cupping the back of Jensen’s head with his free hand. Jensen let his tongue sneak out to slip between Jared’s lips. He pulled back and watched as Jared chased his lips for a second.

“Guess I better get you home then, hmm?” he looked up at Jared from under thick, curved lashes, “Before you try to get to second base right here on this doorstep.”

“Nope, you gotta take me on a second date for that.” Jared stepped away from the door and tugged gently at Jensen’s hand until they were side by side, strolling slowly along the sidewalk, happy little smiles on both of their faces.


End file.
